best budget spotting scope

[Deleted member 28227]

Until I draw a sheep or goat tag, it’s hard to imagine why I’d need expensive glass for a spotting scope. Until then my money is better spent on wyoming cow tags IMO.

I just want better magnification, not to see if a bull is missing a tooth.

Athlon really getting some love

I have $300 Steiner binos, a leupold VX3 on my rifle, but I’d rather not bring a spotter than backpack with a cheap one.

IMHO cheap scopes are fine for looking at pronghorn with a window mount or something like that, but if you are trying to decide if that bull 3 miles away is a 5x5 or a 6 and worth spending 1/2 a day stalking you’re gonna need to be on max power and low end scopes are typically garbage on the highest setting. They’re usually fine at 15x or whatever.

 

[MTLabrador]

12-40 Leupold Gold Rings are a pretty good combo of light and clear if you can find a good deal on a used one.

 

[TOGIE]

I have $300 Steiner binos, a leupold VX3s on my rifle, but I’d rather not bring a spotter than backpack with a cheap one.

IMHO cheap scopes are fine for looking at pronghorn with a window mount or something like that, but if you are trying to decide if that bull 3 miles away is a 5x5 or a 6 and worth spending 1/2 a day stalking you’re gonna need to be on max power and low end scopes are typically garbage on the highest setting. They’re usually fine at 15x or whatever.

Maybe that’s where I differ than most. I’m only interested in determining if the bull 3 miles away is legal.

And really, I’m most interested in determining if those elk 1-2 miles away are bulls or cows, or which deer bedded in the willows is biggest. Maybe my binos are generally good enough for those purposes.

I’m more thinking, I wanna be up high figuring out where I may end up needing to go. Am I seeing bucks in that far away basin vs this closer basin etc

 

[FREAK]

I’m a buy once cry once guy when it comes to boots, optics and packs. I would almost consider selling your current binos (assuming they’re 10x42 budget binos) and using that money plus’s the $500 to upgrade to a nice set of 15x50 binos. Like the others have mentioned, cheap spotter are usually clear on the lower end 15-20power and get pretty fuzzy the more you zoom in. Just not worth the extra weight IMO.

 

[TOGIE]

I guess here’s the other way I’m looking at it, it’s either have a spotter or don’t have a spotter. If that was your only choice would you get a sub 500 kowa or athlon? Or just not have a spotter?

 

[Dsnow9]

I guess here’s the other way I’m looking at it, it’s either have a spotter or don’t have a spotter. If that was your only choice would you get a sub 500 kowa or athlon? Or just not have a spotter?

All depends on the binos your running. We had 4 separate setups this fall glassing about 2 miles away. Mid day all did well. When we started glassing into the sun or picking out bulls vs cows there was a lot of variety.

Razor hd spotter
Budget vortex spotter
Gold ring spotter
Uhd razor binos
Budget binos
Mavens I believe
nl pures

We were basically running everything on the tripods. Hands down my nl pures took the cake from sun up to sun down for spotting game and identification. Most animals were picked off by the binos regardless of which type were being used. The spotters helped a little to count points but as soon as the light wasn’t perfect they were taking second seat to binos.

If your question was upgrade binos or get a spotter my answer is run binos on a tripod with a good mount. I prefer the outdoorsmans.

I will carry a tripod on every trip with my nl pures. Bringing a spotter to anything but a pre season glassing trip hasn’t happened in a couple season.

 

[JoltnJoe]

FWIW Athlon service is top notch!

 

[TOGIE]

If your question was upgrade binos or get a spotter my answer is run binos on a tripod with a good mount. I prefer the outdoorsmans.

that's a good bunch of info.

but, i'm all tripoded out already for binos. so the question really does boil down to spend 300-500 on a spotter and have a spotter or don't have a spotter.

basically, i think there is benefit to having a cheaper spotter over not having a spotter at all, and those are kinda the options i'm giving myself for this purchase.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

I guess here’s the other way I’m looking at it, it’s either have a spotter or don’t have a spotter. If that was your only choice would you get a sub 500 kowa or athlon? Or just not have a spotter?

I don’t own a spotter

 

[TOGIE]

Then maybe we do pivot the discussion to upgrading the binos

 

[Dsnow9]

Then maybe we do pivot the discussion to upgrading the binos

4 votes for that!

 

[mtmuley]

I hardly ever use my budget spotter. Should sell it. mtmuley

 

[woods89]

Then maybe we do pivot the discussion to upgrading the binos

Maybe my use is a little different, but....

After using a pair of Nikon Monarch 3 10x42 and my buddies backup Vortex Diamondback spotter on my last 3rd season elk hunt, I decided I needed better glass. After some research, I wound up buying a used set of Leica Geovid 10x42 and a decent tripod. I'm hoping to go back for 3rd season again next fall, and I'm hoping to rent a pair of Swaro 15s for a week. Leicas will be my chest binos, and the 15s will be for finding animals. Elk is a little different than mule deer, though, as long as we can tell if it's a spike vs legal bull we're going to be pretty happy.

The Diamondback spotter was a real disappointment. It kind of made me realize that I'm not buying a spotter until I can break into a higher bracket.

This will be my first fall with rangefinding binos, but the idea is that they cut a fair bit of time off the range and shoot sequence, and also make ranging easier than a handheld rangefinder. Mine also have onboard ballistics. We'll see.

How's that for a thread derailment?

 

[Flatbrimmer]

I bought the $350 dollar Diamondback on Amazon.. it’s $450 in store $100 off of you Amazon. Took like 7-10 days but that’s $100 man ! it’s been really nice actually.. tripods the killer

 

[woods89]

I bought the $350 dollar Diamondback on Amazon.. it’s $450 in store $100 off of you Amazon. Took like 7-10 days but that’s $100 man ! it’s been really nice actually.. tripods the killer

There you go, one optic, 2 people, 2 different opinions.........

 

[Brad W]

Upgrade the Binos or buy a good pair of 15s. I ran vortex diamondback binos and an older leupold mark 3(?) 12-40x spotter for a while. Found a great deal on a pair of used Swaro ELs 10x42 and haven’t used the spotting scope since. I can see things better at 10x than I can at any setting on the leupold. Biggest thing I haven’t heard discussed is that you will legitimately find 2-3 times more game with top end optics if you do any real glassing. I sat beside my brother for two years in AZ glassing for Coues. Me with ELs and him with the Diamondbacks. I was constantly finding deer that he couldn’t see with his binos. He was getting frustrated with himself for missing deer until we switched setups for a bit…fast forward two years and he bought a set of NL Pures. Once you see the difference side by side in a real world setting it is mind blowing. The clarity, contrast and color fidelity of high end glass makes a huge difference. Looking at the eye chart at Sportsman’s with a couple different pairs of binos doesn’t do any of them justice. If you just want to carry binos in a chest rig and free hand them then it might be less important. If you are going to sit down behind a tripod and glass for any length of time you don’t know what you are missing.

 

[crock239]

Use binos way more than spotter, so that upgrade probably makes sense.

That said, I've collected a Nikon ED50 for backpack and a Nikon Fieldscope ED82 for truck, with interchangeable fixed wide eyepieces.

Both were under $500 used, closer to $400.

(Actually have a third, Nikon Fieldscope EDIII 60mm that I "sold" to my brother, it uses same interchangeable eyepieces so we can trade it out dependingon intended use.)

Do some reading birding forums you're likely to find those used Nikons and Kowas very highly rated.

 

[TOGIE]

I’m still thinking about spotters.

But, let’s now pose the question of is it even worth to go from lower tier binos to mid tier? Is the jump in optical quality significant enough?

Can you expect a pretty solid jump going into the 700-800 range for binos? 500? I’ve been running diamondback hd 10x42s for 6 years. Biggest complaint is how easily they fog simply from the warmth of my eyes. But I’m cheap and functional, they haven’t broken so I’ve kept using them.

This is really thinking forward to next year. Two hunts planned or, very likely planned, that will be the most glassing intensive i will have done.

That said, I still already always spend a lot of time behind my tripod/binos, no matter what.

 

[Brad W]

Rent a pair of Swaros from Todd at optics4rent and try them out beside yours in the field. He is easy to work with. I rented a pair of SLC 15s from him the first time I hunted Coues. That put me on the path to upgrading.

 

[FREAK]

My favorite “budget” bino is the Bushnell engage 12x50. Bushnell sources all their products from a spectrum of suppliers/manufacturers. I think that line is a diamond in the rough. I bought the 10x42 because of the quality vs weight. My buddy left the same binos you have for their 12x50’s in the same model and we’ve spotted a lot of animals through them.

My favorite European brand is Meopta. If you look at their spotters they mimick NF and are also manufactured in the Czech Republic (doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together). I was at the Logan range and could see my 7mm holes in paper at 450, my buddies razor HD could hardly make out the target. I think their MeoPro line of binoculars would be another great optic in their 10x42 for $600ish.